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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25992175">Choosing a Path</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruusverd/pseuds/Ruusverd'>Ruusverd</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Echoes of the Fall AU [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Echoes of the Fall - Adrian Tchaikovsky, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:33:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,139</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25992175</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruusverd/pseuds/Ruusverd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As their journey to the north nears its end, the warband gains a new official member and Geralt has to actually decide where they're going.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Echoes of the Fall AU [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863010</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Choosing a Path</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>*tw:* vague references to an unhappy domestic situation in Milva's recent past. The Eyrie is not a very nice place. In the books the women have their own braided hair wrapped around their necks to keep them from Stepping, and are generally treated like property.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the Horse Society was ready to move on,Geralt agreed with poor grace to sit at the front of the boat and not lift a finger to help with anything. He leaned back and closed his eyes, enjoying the sun on his face and trying to think of a plan.</p>
<p>Soon they would reach the trading post on the edge of the Many Mouths territory, and then he would have to decide what to do, where they were going to go. His foster brother Eskel had joined the Many Mouths, he thought. Eskel might have an idea of where their growing band wouldn't run afoul of any of the other tribes.</p>
<p>He heard footsteps approaching and opened his eyes to see the Hawk woman, Milva, come and crouch next to him. "Where will you go, when you reach the Crown of the World?" she asked him.</p>
<p>He eyed her warily. "I haven't decided."</p>
<p>"But the place you go, you are going to raise your daughter there?" her face was too serious for the question to be idle curiosity.</p>
<p>"Yes, hopefully. If I can find a place that will leave us in peace. I can't give her a proper tribe, but she shouldn't grow up drifting aimlessly around the world. That’s no life for a child."</p>
<p>"No. No life for a child." She looked pensive. "And all these people are going to stay with you?"</p>
<p>"I suppose, at least as long as they want to stay. Except the Caiman, he’s not with us."</p>
<p>Milva glared at him, "He is with you and you know it, or you wouldn't have included him in your negotiations for passage."</p>
<p>Geralt shrugged, "I don't think you came to talk about Cahir."</p>
<p>"No. I wanted- You know how things are for women in the Eyrie, yes?" She waited for Geralt's nod. "My father, he was a good man. He taught me to use the bow and even let me Step sometimes, when no one else could see. I could have lived with that and kept his hearth and been satisfied, but after he died..." she shook her head. "I thought my man was different from the rest, a man like my father. He was, at first, but then he wasn’t, so I cut my hair off to free myself and I flew away." She shifted awkwardly, "But it's been two months, and I think I didn't leave in time."</p>
<p>Geralt inhaled sharply, understanding what she meant.</p>
<p>"And I could get rid of it, but I don't want to. But a lone woman from the Eyrie can't raise a child on her own, either. I’ve been working for the Horse Society because I wanted to see for myself... They say it’s a good life, being one of the Horse, and they are always willing to buy-"</p>
<p>"Come with us," Geralt offered, seeing what she was angling towards. "We're a strange combination of people already, what difference will one more make? Or two." He avoided looking at her still-flat stomach.</p>
<p>Milva ducked her head and the tension bled out of her shoulders. "I beat my man with a rake to get away. I don’t know if I killed him. If I didn’t he might cause trouble. If I did the Eyrie might."</p>
<p>Geralt snorted derisively. "The Kasra of the Sun River Nation islooking for Ciri. If he lived, one scorned Eyrie man doesn't worry me. If he didn’t, well. No one here would call you kinslayer for defending yourself."</p>
<p>Milva nodded. "Thank you. I don't want to be a burden, what can I do to help?"</p>
<p>"Ciri wants you to teach her archery, she told me so. Lem will want to learn if Ciri does. I saw you shoot at the Dragons. Your bow will be a great asset to us. I’m sure with so few of us and no fields planted this late in the year we’ll need every pair of hands we can get to supply ourselves for the winter. You won't be a burden."</p>
<p>Milva smiled at him. "You are a very strange Wolf."</p>
<p>"These things are known: I am," he agreed solemnly with a southern accent and they both chuckled, feeling slightly awkward. Geralt cast around for a change of subject, but none presented itself. Finally he gave up and simply closed his eyes again, hoping he could go to sleep for a while. Now that the venom was fully out of his system he didn't feel as light headed, though it always took a while to regain strength after losing so much blood.</p>
<p>He didn't think his leg would be permanently weakened by the injury, but he would have preferred to be able to exercise it more than the confines of the boat allowed. He needed to be able to put on a display of strength before they encountered the Many Mouths. The life of a lone Wolf was a life balanced on a knife’s edge. It wasn’t natural for a Wolf to be alone, and one that lived apart by choice inspired an instinctive distrust from the rest of the Wolf’s people. A lone hunter who was weak was no better than easy prey, but one that was too strong might be a threat, and would have to be either controlled or eliminated.</p>
<p>He couldn't predict how his new companions would shift that delicate balance. Plotka and Jaskier hadn’t made much difference, easily dismissed by the Wolves as the sort of petty nuisances that followed in a Wolf’s wake but didn’t reflect in any way on his own strength. But a group of nine that included a priestess, children, and a woman with child… that wasn’t a lone hunter and his hangers-on, or even a group of outcast hunters forming a mismatched warband, as sometimes happened. That was the beginning of a tribe. A tribe such as had never existed in the Crown of the World, with so many different peoples looking to settle and live together as equals.</p>
<p>“Is it your leg or your thoughts that have your face twisted up like that?”</p>
<p>Geralt opened one eye, wondering when Milva had left and been replaced by Yennefer. He smiled at her and shifted to the side to invite her to sit next to him. “Thinking about what we’re going to do when we reach the Many Mouths.”</p>
<p>Yennefer hummed thoughtfully. “I spoke to Milva just now. She told me about her… situation, and that you’d agreed for her to join us.”</p>
<p>Geralt frowned, “It seemed like the best option for her and for us. She wanted to come along, I saw no reason not to agree.”</p>
<p>“Don’t get defensive, I’m not criticizing. I’m just saying it adds another set of considerations to keep in mind when we decide where to go.”</p>
<p>Geralt rubbed his face tiredly. “I know. But I didn’t have any place in mind to begin with, so it’s not as if her presence will ruin my plan.”</p>
<p>“I suppose your plans can’t be easily ruined if you have none to begin with,” Yennefer said with a wry smile. She looked around the boat, mentally tallying up their little band. “I suppose we couldn’t just settle down with a tribe of the Wolf.”</p>
<p>Geralt shook his head. “They might accept us as short-term guests, but they’re too keen on their own superiority to accept 'lesser' peoples long-term except as thralls. And I don’t want them filling Ciri’s head with their nonsense about the Wolf anyway.”</p>
<p>Yennefer nodded agreement, “And the Eyrie is obviously out, even without Jaskier and Milva to consider.”</p>
<p>“Yes. And the Shadow Eaters would kill me on sight if I was <em>lucky,</em> after all the wars between Wolf and Tiger. We can’t go east to their territory.”</p>
<p>“The Bear?”</p>
<p>“The Cave Dwellers can’t even stand each other, let alone strangers. Besides, it’s too cold that far north. Even I don’t like it up there. The girls might be able to adapt with time, but you would never be able to live there long-term, and likely not Regis either.”</p>
<p>Yennefer sighed and rested her head on Geralt’s shoulder. “Maybe we could build a boat and sail away. We could discover a whole new world like our ancestors did,” she mused whimsically.</p>
<p>“Preferably not while running for our lives from Plague People, though.” Geralt laughed, sliding his arm around her shoulders.</p>
<p>Yennefer stiffened against him and didn’t laugh. “I would prefer that, too.”</p>
<p>Geralt frowned at her, “You sound like it’s a possibility.”</p>
<p>Yennefer sighed. “Not the Plague People exactly, not the same ones the true people fled from. But the same sort of danger.” In a voice low enough not to carry Yennefer told Geralt about the Kasra’s plan to make Ciri his Kasrani, and to create a Champion of Champions from their child. “It’s madness,” she concluded, “even if he tried it wouldn’t work. The Snake has a long memory, and the Sun River Nation would be far from the first place to be destroyed by too much tampering with souls.”</p>
<p>“The Snake priesthood won’t have to worry about the child’s souls being tampered with,” Geralt said viciously, barely remembering to keep his volume low, “because the child will never exist. I won’t let him do that to Ciri.” He closed his eyes, trying to calm down before anyone noticed and started wondering why he was so upset. “I don’t know what to do, Yen. We’re not going to be able to hide. Not forever, not with this many people from so many different tribes. We can hope to find a place where we’ll be tolerated and ignored, but we won’t be completely hidden. And we can’t out-fight his army with less than a dozen people.”</p>
<p>“I know, but we <em>can</em> try to outlast him. Emhyr still doesn’t know who Ciri is traveling with, or even if she’s still alive as far as we know. He might not connect us to her, at least for a while, and he can’t keep up the search forever. He’s overreached himself as it is with his desire for conquest. He won’t be able to stay in power if he takes too much of his attention away from managing his war and keeping his own people in line in favor of chasing one Plains girl across the world for his mad scheme.”</p>
<p>Geralt looked down the length of the boat to where Ciri and Lem were playing some sort of clapping game, laughing every time one of them made a mistake. “I won’t let him take her, Yen. I won’t. No matter what it takes.”</p>
<p>“I know.” Yennefer repeated, tapping her fingers against her leg thoughtfully. “You told me once that no one had ever returned to the Elder Sea village after the massacre, is that still true?”</p>
<p>“Yes, as far as I know.” Geralt frowned, “Between what happened with the Champion and the priests, and then nearly all of us being wiped out less than a year later the tribes decided the place was cursed. Most of the land has been claimed, but not the village itself as far as I know, or the area right around it.”</p>
<p>“Do you think it’s cursed?” She pulled away so she could look at him.</p>
<p>“I don’t know, I’ve never returned. When those of us who’d missed the attack came back old Vesemir Swift Strike ran us off, wouldn’t even let us help him tend to the dead. Why are you asking?”</p>
<p>“It’s a place no one could possibly mind us using,” Yennefer pointed out, “Regis could help, his people were once known to be gifted at curse-breaking and releasing ghosts. And my own skills in those areas are quite strong if I do say so myself.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to go back there,” Geralt said, “It isn’t my home anymore.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Yennefer looked sympathetic, “but I think it’s the only option we have. No tribe is going to allow all of us to settle on their territory. This is a place that isn't claimed by anyone. I think we should at least try. We can always keep looking if it turns out we can’t stay there.”</p>
<p>Geralt looked at the girls again, at Jaskier huddled miserably while Regis suggested various remedies for his seasickness. Cahir was taking a turn at the oars, and Milva was Stepped, floating in lazy circles above the barge. Plotka shared a pen with the few remaining mute horses. He grimaced. Yennefer was right. There was nowhere they could go that wouldn’t object to at least one member of their band. Elder Sea was the only halfway decent possibility they had.</p>
<p>Yennefer correctly interpreted his expression as reluctant agreement and leaned against his shouler again. He put his arm back around her and sighed, not happy with their plan but relieved to have one.</p>
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